Herrick wrote so well we hardly notice. A brilliant translator, he often improves on the Latin: "I ask't thee oft, what Poets thou hast read?/
And liks't the best? Still thou reply'st, 'The Dead.'" This is Martial, " Miraris veteres," 8.69. An Anglican minister whose Devon church and house-in-exile still stand just off the main highway (at Dean Prior), he wrote the most famous Cavalier poem on erection, "The Vine." This uses a dream and a gardening metaphor, 'Me thought, her long small legs and thighs / I with my tendrils did surprise," and concludes,"And with the fancy I awook; /And found (Ah me!)
this mortal part of mine / More like a Stock than like a Vine."
To sum his genius, see him fit Latinate, ponderous words into light, short meter, four beat lines: "When as in silks my Julia goes / Then, then (me thinks) how sweetly flows / The liquefation of her clothes."
My personal favorite shows Herrick the clergyman syncretizing classical and Christian gods: "The gods require the thighs / Of beeves for sacrifice /
Which roasted, we the steam / High-towering raise to them, / Who, though they do not eat, / Yet love the smell of meat." Something deeply personal as well as professional here; Herrick combines his asceticism and his sensuality in another syncretism. ( )